THE TERMS OF THEIR AFFAIR
Clare Connelly
All the characters in this book are fictitious and have no existence outside the author’s imagination. They have no relation to anyone bearing the same name or names and are pure invention.
All rights reserved. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reprinted by any means without permission of the Author.
The illustration on the cover of this book features model/s and bears no relation to the characters described within.
First published 2016
(c) Clare Connelly
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PROLOGUE.
Even the weather obeyed Caradoc Moore.
He had wanted sunshine in the midst of the darkness, and London had obliged.
Two days of crisp blue skies and milky winter sunshine, despite a temperature that hovered somewhere around the zero mark.
And his mood was even more dire.
He stared, unseeing, at the glorious view framed perfectly by his Canary Wharf penthouse windows. The Thames was a sludge of silver, and the same sun that made it glisten bounced off hair that had been gradually turning grey since his twenty first birthday. It was his hallmark. Hair that was reminiscent of steel – many had remarked that it was a forewarning of a heart that was similarly unbending.
London glistened beneath him like a modern photograph stencilled over historical etchings. Bridges of ancient times nudged their heads up determinedly, but iron and glass dominated.
How he hated it.
London.
All of it. The old. The new. The beautiful and the ugly.
It was not his city.
None of it was his.
He expelled an angry breath and his clear brown eyes clouded over momentarily. How long before he could leave? What was the appropriate amount of time to stay? And did he give a shit? Caradoc Moore was not a man who generally gave in to social convention.
Then again, how often did one’s father die?
The loss of Gower Moore was something Caradoc felt obliged to mark with a semblance of respect, despite the fact he had long despised the weak-minded fool.
With a clearing of his throat, he pulled his cell from the pocket of his bespoke suit. He pressed a button impatiently; Caradoc Moore was always impatient. Like his grey hair, it was a hallmark of his. A single stare from his pale brown eyes made his staff quake in their boots.
His assistant Alexi answered after half a ring. “Good evening, sir,” she greeted smoothly, despite the fact it would still have been morning for her.
He dispensed with any niceties. They were not necessary. “I’ll need a car and driver for …” he stared at the city, his expression one of frustration. “A week. Perhaps two.” An arbitrary duration plucked from the air, it seemed nonetheless appropriate. It would allow time for the funeral, and a little over to settle Gower’s estate and assure his widow and second child were cared for.
“Certainly, sir. When would you like …?”
“Now. I want this dealt with. Over. Finished.”
He disconnected the call without waiting for Alexi’s response then returned to his brooding. It was now only a matter of time before he returned to Bagleyhurst House, and the inheritance he didn’t want.
CHAPTER ONE
“You’re a woman.”
Seraphina James was used to this reaction. She nodded once, just enough to show assent, not enough to show sympathy. After all, what did she have to feel sorry for?
The stunning man with the beautiful apartment creased his brow and continued to stare at her in a manner she might have found insolent were it not for the fact he was so obviously coldly detached. His stare was businesslike, his manner off-hand.
And yet, as his glowing brown eyes danced the length of her figure, Finn’s pulse kicked up a notch in an unwelcome sign of awareness. She tamped it down.
“My assistant sent you?”
Again, Finn nodded. His American accent was perfect; like a Hollywood actor’s, it was clear and concise. His voice was deep; its timbre rich. “Well, she contacted my agency …”
“I haven’t met you before,” Caradoc continued, his doubt obvious.
Finn bit back the sarcastic remark that had been tingling on the tip of her tongue. “No, sir,” she smiled instead.
His mood was not improved by this development. He couldn’t have said why, but something about this chauffeur unsettled him.
It was not her femininity.
He employed many women at senior positions and had zero tolerance for the kind of outmoded opinions that insisted women had a different skillset to men.
Caradoc had made his fortune by seeing people for their potential, not their body parts.
And yet …
He dragged his gaze over her once more.
She was wearing a black suit – perfectly respectable – with a crisp white shirt beneath it. Only, as his eyes lingered a little on the swell of her breasts, he saw the hint of her lace bra beneath the cotton and he felt himself stir in instant reaction.
At her neck, there was a black necklace instead of a tie, and it was oddly erotic.
Her feet too were shod in heels. At least two inches, which gave her slightly more height, though he still towered over her.
Her hair was beyond auburn; it was flame and fire, heat and glow. Her eyes were as green as the ocean of the Aegean, and her skin was like pearl dust – luminescent in its paleness.
He took a step closer and instantly regretted it, for he could more clearly see the small cluster of freckles that danced across her nose. And up close, he caught a hint of her fragrance too – cinnamon and sunshine, it was exotic and sweet.
“What did you say your name is?”
Her mouth wasn’t exactly smiling, but he somehow felt her amusement. “I didn’t, but it’s Seraphina. Everyone calls me Finn though. Seraphina is a mouthful and a half.”
He raised a single brow at the unintended double entendre. “Finn.”
The way he said her name sent sharp darts of pleasure tingling over her spine. She shoved that reaction out of her mind. He was not the first handsome man she’d come across; nor the first handsome client.
She forced a professional expression onto her fine-boned features.
“You’re ready to …”
“How long have you been driving?” He interrupted without realising he was doing it. That was just Caradoc’s way.
She compressed her lips, intending to express displeasure but unwittingly drawing his gaze to her pout. “Full time, for four years.”
His response was immediate. “How old are you?”
She didn’t, for a moment, think of hedging the question. “Twenty three.”
Eleven years his junior. He rubbed a hand over his square jawline. Despite having shaved before leaving Manhattan, his skin was prickled with fresh hair.
“I’m accustomed to more experienced chauffeurs, ordinarily.”
“Are you?”
“I also require my drivers to have a skillset that goes beyond driving.”
“Do you?” Her tone was sweet. Too sweet. It hid a blade of diamond-like strength.
“Security, for one,” he prompted.
“Your security?” She couldn’t help it. Her words were pocked with wry amusement. The man before her was a pi
cture of physical strength and virility.
“Yes.”
“Then I think you’ll find I’m adequately prepared to meet your needs,” she assured him stiffly.
“Really?” He was droll. This woman looked like a breeze could blow her away. Well, her delectable curves might offer a hint of resistance.
“Yes, really,” she promised, without elucidating.
“My driver in Manhattan has more than twenty two years experience as an NYPD cop.”
“Does she?” Finn prompted with a tight grin, earning another brow furrowing from Caradoc. Why did that turn her on so much? Seeing him cross and confused was making her insides all gooey.
“He,” Caradoc corrected instinctively.
“Well,” Finn shrugged. “I’m no cop.”
“No,” Caradoc agreed.
“But I can promise you, sir, I could save you from any threat that comes your way.” She said it with a conspiratorial wink that made him feel almost childish. It was a revelation. Caradoc hadn’t been spoken to with such wry disrespect in a very long time. If ever.
“Oh?” He covered his unusual sense of uncertainty with another step forward and was rewarded by the way colour bloomed high in her cheekbones. Her eyes widened and her pupils visibly swelled.
Damn it. Any ground she’d made up had been swiftly lost by the treachery of her body.
“I’m more than qualified to work as your chauffeur,” she said stiffly, her smile no longer in evidence. “That includes being able to protect you should the need arise.”
She had surprised him. He didn’t like it. Caradoc made a living from making snap decisions. Whether it was people or corporations, he made it his business to get their measure in a matter of moments. And yet Seraphina ‘call me Finn’ James had met his interrogation head-on.
He didn’t show surprise. She had wrong-footed him but only briefly. He was back in control swiftly.
“Do you have the address?”
“Yes, sir,” she flattened anything but civility from her tone and blinked up at him.
“Let’s go then.”
“Do you have bags, sir?” She queried, as he began to move with a panther-like grace through the luxurious apartment.
“Yes.” He nodded past her shoulder and when she followed his gaze, she saw a suited gentleman in his fifties appear as if from nowhere. “Andrew will bring them.”
“That’s not necessary,” she murmured, her smile intended only for the servant.
Caradoc expelled an audible breath and his nostrils flared at the same time. Finn went to take the bags but Caradoc shook his head minutely.
The servant moved past them, and when Finn would have followed, Caradoc lifted a single hand to bar her progress.
“You are engaged to drive me for the next week or so. You don’t know me, Seraphina, so let me tell you something that will help you … cope … with me.”
She kept her face wiped of any reaction. Instinctively, she believed him to be a man who enjoyed throwing people off kilter. If his mission was to gain the upper-hand, she would not accede it to him.
“Do I need to … cope … with you, sir?”
Was she baiting him?
Was she being deliberately incendiary?
He felt himself harden and the involuntary response angered him further.
It was Gower’s death that was making him unpredictable and uncontrolled.
Not this woman.
“You need to please me,” he chipped. “And I do not need to deal with attitude from someone in my employ while I am here.”
His words smarted, mostly because Seraphina prided herself on her ability to please even the most difficult of clients.
But she wouldn’t apologise.
“I was only offering to carry your luggage, as is absolutely in my job description.”
He was silent. His eyes hovered on her lips, and then lifted to lance her clear green gaze with precision and power. “Your job description is whatever the hell I need it to be now. Got it?”
And with that, he spun on his heel and strode away from her. His back was straight, his shoulder squared, and his manner more puzzling than Finn could have explained.
She had to walk quickly to catch up to him, and it was far from a dignified scene.
Her heart was racing in her chest when she reached him at the lift; her fingers were shaking slightly by her side.
She was nervous!
It was a revelation to a woman who was usually unflappable in the extreme.
When the lift doors closed, she half expected him to continue his strange questioning of her, but he did not. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and stared at the screen. While Finn didn’t dare look directly at him, she could see his reflection in the stainless steel of the doors, and his expression glowed with the same intensity she had recognised when he’d addressed her.
The ride from the thirty seventh floor took barely a minute. The doors swished open onto the ground floor, and by that time, Finn had remembered she was a professional. With a bland, non-committal smile, she gestured towards the doors. “This way, sir.”
He didn’t so much as blink in her direction, but he moved with her, and so Finn presumed he’d heard.
The car was parked directly outside, and Andrew had already stowed the bags in the boot. Finn reached for the back passenger door and held it open, her eyes focussed on a point in the distance. Caradoc’s gaze though drifted across her as he sat down, and it was sardonically mocking.
She ground her teeth together and closed the door a little more forcefully than was necessary before crossing to the driver side and slipping into her seat.
“There are refreshments in the compartment between the seats. Please let me know if you require anything else.”
She pressed the ignition and the engine of the Bugatti flared powerfully to life. Finn’s lips twitched with happiness as she felt the power and throttle beneath her.
Her fingers glided over the gears as though it were a musical instrument and she its maestro. She glanced into the rear vision mirror to check for oncoming traffic and met the disconcertingly direct stare of Caradoc.
She flicked her gaze away instantly and focussed on the roads. The reliable roads that she knew as well as any London cabbie. It was almost three hours drive to Bagleyhurst but the route was clear and the weather was as good as could be expected at that time of year.
She pointed the car into traffic and took off.
Caradoc scanned his emails as they drove, flicking almost all of them to either Alexi or his right-hand man Jonas to deal with. Caradoc didn’t have time for small problems. He was a big picture man, designed to see the overall shape and make plans accordingly.
And yet he saved some to respond to personally, simply to give him something to do.
He told himself he was trying to keep distracted from the arduous play-acting that would ensue when he arrived at Bagleyhurst. The necessity to show everyone that he was the grieving son when he was, in fact, no such thing.
“Do you know why I am here?”
The question surprised them both. He had no idea he was even thinking it, and yet he heard his mouth articulate the words, and as he was not on his phone, he assumed he must have been speaking to her.
“Yes, sir,” she said, her cheeks once again flushing, this time with guilt. Fascinating. Why should she feel guilty? Gower’s death was no one’s fault but the old man’s. He’d eaten himself to an early grave. He’d drunk himself there too, for good measure, and in case either of those hedonistic delights had failed him, he’d thrown in a cigar most days, just to be certain.
Gower Moore was a notorious entrepreneur; his death was the stuff of public fodder.
She was wearing gloves. They were black and leather, but he could see that her fingers were slim and long. He watched as she splayed them wide and gripped the wheel more tightly. Their eyes locked in the mirror once more and he felt another swift punch of arousal.
Grief could do that
to a man. Especially a man like Caradoc who enjoyed blowing off steam by getting laid.
He hadn’t been at all close to Gower – that was an enormous understatement – but he was still affected by his death. If only for the inconvenience of it all. His emotions had been strained; his concentration pushed. And now? This woman with her haunting eyes and soft, creamy skin was making him want to forget anything but the kind of pleasure his body was capable of feeling.
“I’m sorry about your father.”
His eyes bore into hers until she was obliged to return her attention to the road.
“I’m not sure I am,” he responded, with an honesty that surprised them both.
Her gaze flew to his once more. “You weren’t close.”
“No.” He turned his attention to his window. But he didn’t see the low-lying suburban sprawl of Outer-London.
He saw Gower’s eyes – eyes so like his – glaring at him in displeasure.
Caradoc could remember each and every time he’d met his father. Eight times in his whole life, and the first five encounters had left him with the distinct impression that he had been irredeemably unimpressive.
Only the final three meetings, when Caradoc Moore had firmly established himself on the international money markets as a wunderkind to watch, had Gower shown any kind of paternalistic interest and pride in his own son. Then Caradoc had ceased to be a child no one wanted and had become instead an asset. A man Gower was pleased to speak of and claim as his descendant.
Only after proving himself had Caradoc been worthy of Gower’s love. And by then, it had been the last thing Caradoc had wanted.
In fact, when offered, Gower’s praise had seemed an insult. Caradoc had instinctively shrugged it off. Perhaps, as a young boy, he might have needed that gift.
But not as a powerful, successful, lauded magnate. At twenty-five, Caradoc’s first hedge fund had made him more than two billion dollars and Caradoc had become a name to be feared.
Almost a decade later, he’d ridden the wave of global financial torpor and emerged high on top. His instincts were legendary, as was his determination.
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